Queenstown, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Friends and neighbours, sorry for my silence. I’ve been up and down, round and round… And now I’m in South Australia. Adelaide to be precise. It’s transpired that I’m going to be here for the rest of the year. I came via two other states. In Victoria I stopped in Melbourne, where I gained two hours, then I headed to Western Australia and spent a few halcyon days in Perth, where I gained three more (though my good friend’s 30th birthday celebrations may have stolen a few years of my life). I then hopped down to Adelaide via Melbourne, where I lost three hours but then managed to claw back a measly half. In summary, I’m quite confused. I’m not entirely sure what the real time or date is. But I do know where and who I am.

I also know what I am. I am no longer even a part-time reluctant accountant. I am fully freelance. I am a published author and managing director of my own book editing business. I am a wandering writer and renegade rover of this oyster of a world we live in. I didn’t choose to be cut adrift. But we can only make choices when it comes to what we can control. When it comes to ourselves. Our location, our occupation, our outlook on life and love, lost and otherwise. We can choose not to be beaten, not to be broken, whatever happens. We can choose to bounce back.

Of course, when we’re coming back from being knocked down, it helps to have friends, all around the globe, offering their support and inviting you into their homes. When you’ve lost your own, someone else’s home can be a sanctuary. And that’s how I come to be here, in the beautiful eleventh floor pad of an apartment block in the centre of Adelaide, with a balcony looking east out onto the hills and showcasing the sunrise, fitness facilities shared with the Crowne Plaza next door, and incomparable company.

I know what I’m doing here. I’m writing my second novel (here we go again, National Novel Writing Month!). I’m convalescing. I’m seeing old friends and new places. I’m firing up to gain more business. And I’m becoming even more who I want to be – just in time to turn thirty come Sunday (twitch, twitch).

So I said so long to Queenstown, but it won’t go anywhere, and I’ll be back. It is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful places in the world, where I’ve had the time of my life with some of the best people I’ve ever met. I went on a wee pilgrimage before I left to take shots of some of its highlights away with me. I’ve included just a few of these below.

Have you ever left somewhere with a heavy heart? Did you ever go back? Carrying a heavy heart is like flying with excess baggage – expensive and frustrating. I’m terrible at packing, but I’m aiming to reorganise things and travel lightly into the future.

Rum Curries

Lake Wakatipu

Basket of Dreams, Queenstown Hill

Lake Hayes

Queenstown Hill Summit

Bob’s Cove

Glenorchy Road

Macetown

Arrowtown to Macetown Track

12 Mile Delta

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10 thoughts on “Queenstown, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish”

Good for you, Sara. I’m so glad to hear you’re moving on and starting to feel better about things. 😀 And now that you’re no longer an accountant, you’re in complete control of your destiny! That must feel so liberating, yet a little bit scary. But I think you’ll do just fine.

And I LOVE all of your New Zealand photos! Are these some of the ones you took for Queenstown Snappers?

Thanks, Sara. Definitely forging ahead with a long list of things I want to do and achieve now I’m my own master! A couple are indeed Snappers shots! I think I’m going to have to devote a whole post to some of the others and link to the other members of the group – some of the pictures coming out were just incredible, especially from the pros!

Beautiful photos. And even though it’s kind of a heavy hearted time, I envy it a bit. I remember that unsure traveling, roving, new phase of life sort of feeling. And I feel nostalgic for it. How strange. I think good things are afoot! And Happy Early Birthday!

You sound so calm, so settled in your unsettledness. It sounds damn near perfect, and I’m so, so happy for you.

But I can totally relate to that heavy feeling of leaving a place: I felt that way when I left Australia after living there for a year as an exchange student. Granted, a lot of my heaviness had to do with the boy I was also leaving…and the fact that I’d gained 30 pounds (a little more than 2 stone??) soothing my homesickness by stuffing my face. I have not gone back there, but I VOW to do so before I leave this earth.

So enjoy your time there for me, so I can live vicariously through you. Do it up good, girl…which sounds like the only way you know how!

Thanks Kelly, I probably sound more together than I am 🙂 but it’s that thing where if you smile, you feel more smiley; if you laugh, you can’t help but feel better… and if you clear the tears from your eyes so you’re not so blinded, you can see the beauty all around you…

Ah I can imagine how hard it must have been to leave, but the awesomeness will still be here when your vow comes to fruition!! Meanwhile, trying *not* to gain 2 stone & enjoy it all without toooo much excess 🙂 there’ll be more updates for sure!

So long and thanks for all the – dangit, now it’s stuck in my head again! Took me about three weeks to get it out the first time I heard it.
I hope we get to see you in NZ again!
I left the closest place to home with a heavy heart at seventeen (cried the whole flight) but went back about nine years later. It wasn’t the same, I wasn’t the same – maybe Heraclitus was right about that whole river thing. Still, it was worth going just to know there was no going back.

Haha sorry, hope it fades away at some point! I’ll definitely be back.. but I know what you mean.. Times change, people change, places aren’t the same because you don’t stay the same person.. But they can be good different 🙂